Hazaar voices for Hazare
Posted on April 09, 2011
On April 5 2011, Kisan Bapat Baburao Hazare made good his promise to fast unto death till the UPA led government agreed to the enactment of the Jan Lokpal Bill, an alternative to the previously presented, watered down version, the Lokpal Bill. While the government and activists as well as the content of the Bills swung radically towards opposing ends of the spectrum, an angry India whipped up a maelstrom of emotion with a tumultuous outburst.
For this veteran soldier and Gandhian, development crusader and long-time social activist, support on the ground and by online communities (4.4 million tweets from 8, 26,000 unique users across 79 cities in India, TOI, April 9th 2011) was vocal and spontaneous.
Elsewhere, protests were staged in Hassan, Karnataka, in front of the Deputy Commissioner's office, and a signature campaign was planned in all taluks of the district with signed memorandums eventually being sent to the Prime Minister through the local tahsildars. In Pune, silent protests were held, and petitions signed with local NGO groups swinging into action. Mumbai had its share of protests and a bike rally. Celebrities plunged in with Mallika Sarabhai standing up in Gujarat and Bollywood / Sandalwood film stars tweeting their support. Bangaloreans met at Freedom Park while across the country protest gatherings allowed everyone to have their say and middle-class India, young and old alike fasted, attended rallies, sang songs, held candles and carried posters in support. Jubilant references were made to Tahrir and The Jasmine revolution. And of course, Mahatma Gandhi.
From watershed development, to paving the way for model villages to lobbying for change (RTI, anti-corruption), Anna Hazare has campaigned tirelessly but effectively (in Maharashtra) for a good portion of his life, successfully straddling the contradictory worlds of ecology and economy. It was time now for the nation to appropriate him. And they did. With euphoric fervour.
Decades of being passive witnesses to rampant corruption may have created this tipping point, a cathartic expression of a people who have learned to live without a voice or a platform to stand up and speak. Overnight, with one sustenance denying gesture, Anna Hazare gave us both – a voice and a platform. In the process, India gave itself a new hero whereas until now, the slot was reserved only for Bollywood Badshahs or Men in Blue.
The making of a hero is not too difficult to track in a disillusioned modern India desperately looking for one. The corruption cause is close to our heart, it touches a raw nerve every time you articulate the Bribe word and finally, there stands a man willing to give it a face. His own. The timing also, was perfect.
Month after month the media has had us lurching dizzily from one scam story to another, on a scale of brain dimming soaps to big-ticket scandals. We suppressed rage, frustration and helplessness in the privacy of our homes while perpetrators hid behind lengthy judicial processes or the powers that be, often even going scot free. Our leaders and those we idolised turned out to have feet of clay.
The theory of a hero is ancient. Since times immemorial, heroes have had differing forms and definition in classical literature, mythology and even annals of war. From exhibiting divine ancestry to helping us discover the divine in us, saving the planet or the moral fibre of its people, from annexing territories to conquering hearts, history has presented before us, a fair share of role models. But making heroes out of other individuals puts them on a plane that is higher than us and thereby undermines the power of our own potential to do great things.
On April 7 2011, agitated responses at Freedom Park, Bangalore varied from “Corruption affects everybody’s lives and just has to stop“ to “the middle class has no money to pay “ to even “politicians get rich when farmers are dying “to“ use our money for water, food and housing, basic amenities, instead of eating it all up.” What Anna Hazare has really done is give a suppressed country a collective voice and a public forum to voice it at, along with proof that we can come together, if we believe we should.
Notifying a joint panel and preparing a Bill with civil society participation is big but will not end corruption. It is one part of the means to an end. As is the protest. Viewed in isolation, each have positives and drawbacks but become effective when used together to support sustainable solutions – step wise systemic as well as systematic change and saying NO to giving bribes in our everyday lives. We must plan for the long term otherwise, the outstretched hand will continue to torment us tomorrow when renewing a license or registering our home.
With the Government agreeing to the formal notification of a joint panel of activists and ministers (a 50:50 ministerial-activist composition ) on the panel and Anna Hazare's offer of the committee being co-chaired, it is a great reminder of the power of the aam janta. But what makes a movement, a people’s movement is not Anna Hazare. It is that very aam janta, you, me and all of us who give it strength and bring it to life by standing up together. He is only a conduit for us to understand our own power.
While heroes must serve as subjects of inspiration, or lead by example, there also lies a hero in each one of us who emerges when we find our voice. We must ensure the battle against corruption isn’t just a five-day one that ends along with the fast. Anna Hazare is but a catalyst, for us to go on to do bigger things.
AR